


like dying a little every day

by TheCrimsonRanger



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Asterin is mentioned, Closure, Emotional, F/F, Grief/Mourning, I Will Go Down With This Ship, SPOILERS FOR KINGDOM OF ASH, the thirteen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 06:07:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCrimsonRanger/pseuds/TheCrimsonRanger
Summary: Asterin's request before Manon swung at her grandmother never left her mind, and now that the wars are over and there is time to hurt and to heal, Manon needs to keep her end of the promise. Elide goes with her, to make sure she's alright.





	like dying a little every day

For the first few seconds, Elide wasn't sure what to make of it. Seeing Manon holding a flower in a clay pot, hugging it tight to her side with one arm, her expression fiercely protective, was so discordant that her eyebrows rose hesitantly.

And then she realized it was familiar.

Spread over swathes of ruined land, a sharp crater in the otherwise flat terrain just outside Orynth. Displaced earth scattered haplessly in every direction - whatever had once been there existed no more. Flowers had grown while Manon was there, her face tear-streaked with such grief that it might have torn apart mountains if she hadn't been on her knees, trembling, pressing her hands to the earth, clawing at it like she wanted nothing more than to drag the Thirteen back to life.

Only once had Elide ever seen Manon cry. It was so inexplicably wrong when the witch had stood so tall and proud and, for decades, unshaken. It made her heart hurt and her soul wrench like it was trying to leap out of her body and she never wanted to see it happen ever again.

"I need to do something." Manon said, meeting her eyes. Elide exhaled, finding that the shimmering, burning gold hadn't dimmed in the slightest. Or perhaps that wasn't the most pleasant thing. If eyes were the windows to the soul, as Elide had often heard, then Manon was always quietly burning, burning, burning. With what, she couldn't tell. "And I want you to come with me."

It took days, but never once did Elide falter alongside Manon.

Days of sweeping over the lands with Abraxos, straining the witch's memory, trying to recall any detail that might lead them in the right direction. Manon flew as though she were being pulled by the fabric of the universe, and for right now, nothing existed but the sky, the flower tucked carefully where the wind would not tear at its petals, and Asterin's voice whispering in her ears.

"Bring my body back to the cabin."

When they found it, Manon brought Abraxos down amidst the trees, landing in the overgrown yard. Shrubs and saplings had sprung up, and nature had nearly reclaimed it. The man who'd lived here once, the one Asterin had spoken of that day on the cliff, was surely dead.

Ever steady, Manon dismounted, but her eyes did not leave the cabin. When her feet hit the ground, Elide slid off Abraxos' back and moved to stand beside her as Manon listened.

The forest, which had silenced upon hearing the mighty wingbeats of her wyvern, was beginning to return to itself, birds chirping and wind rustling the branches of trees that were perhaps even older than she. Soft grass swayed, reminding her abruptly of a thousand blades laid bare from their sheaths.

Witch towers carving through lines of men, human and Fae alike. Pounding desperation and teeth around Abraxos' throat and screaming and gripping the railing so hard it cracked and nearly gave way, and the last moment she ever laid eyes on her beautiful Thirteen before they-

"Manon."

She looked to Elide, jarred from her thoughts. The Lady of Perranth only offered her hand. After a few seconds of heavy silence, Manon clasped Elide's hand in her own. "Her memory will not be tainted with war," she said, and stepped forward.

Elide would still remember, even years later. Manon carried the flower to the steps, then knelt and scraped a hole in the earth. It would not have done any good to bring a severed flower to Asterin's beloved cabin, as it would have only withered away. Manon did not have a body left to bury of her cousin.

This was all she could do. With Elide's presence behind her, solid, grounding, Manon's hands didn't shake, and her eyes stayed clear. Asterin would have liked it that way. She lowered the flower into the earth, then covered its roots up. She didn't stand.

Asterin's last moments had been ones of light, not darkness. She deserved that.

"Keep them safe for me." Manon whispered to the golden flower. "Until I am there with you."

**Author's Note:**

> So, Malide apparently isn't canon. Oh well. Also, I cried over the Thirteen. Hard. And that's my inspiration for writing this. It was written at 11 at night and also very short so I don't know what to expect from this.
> 
> Thanks for reading guys!


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